woman arrested for dancing on jefferson memorial

A D.C. woman was arrested Saturday for dancing on the Jefferson Memorial.

Brooke Oberwetter was participating in a peaceful gathering to celebrate the birthday of Thomas Jefferson. Participants danced quietly while listening to their iPods.

The Agitator points to the supreme irony of the situation:

Of course, the real irony here is that all of this happened at the Jefferson Memorial, in observance of Jefferson’s birthday. Go out to celebrate the birth of the most hardcore, anti-authoritarian of the Founding Fathers, get hauled off in handcuffs. The photo’s almost poetry, isn’t it? One of history’s most articulate critics of abuse of state authority looks on as a park police cop uses his elbow to push a female arrestee into one of said critic’s memorial pillars.

The woman was released a few hours following her arrest.

DCist has more on the incident.